天下制覇

Suck it, Hattori.

Impressions:

Absolutely awesome episode, though not really all that much in terms of plot advancement. Miharu goes berserk, Kumohira’s magical doohickey unseals Miharu (and everybody else’s memories) of when he inherited the spirit of the All-Nature and he went berserk again from getting to watch his parents killed in front of him. Let’s just ignore the production mistake of a young Kouichi. So much for immortality, eh? Hattori, ever the arrogant jerk-off, tries to finally grab the power, but Yoite gets in the way, and instead of just stepping on his head or something, Hattori decides to taunt the now desperate and crazy Yoite and gets a point blank full-hand blast to the gut, taking him down.

Well, more of a summary than I meant, but lots of action throughout, and while we’ve more or less known about Miharu and Kumohira’s past since the second episode or so, we got to fill in some of the final gaps of his past. I thought the whole "Forget!" thing was a little over done, especially with continuity-breaking Kouichi (and the cat!) just sort of hanging out there, along with Fuuma. You couldn’t swing a dead cat in that forest without hitting a ninja I guess. The giant DNA strand spiralling into the sky was also pretty silly, as were the illusions of various nature scenes when Miharu started going berserk in earnest, but otherwise, a very solid episode.

This is why I liked the series at the start though. Not that whiny, angsty "let’s all be friends" nonsense. Ninjas beating the hell out of each other in blurry vision with CG letters crawling over everything. Hopefully the last couple episodes won’t disappoint either. Maybe we can at least go out on a high note.

Preview:

Fuuma looks entirely too happy and Yoite looks entirely too scared of sticking his finger in his ear.